AAA..By ThirdAge News StaffPosted October 29, 2010 11:44 AM. Meningitis vaccines for teenagers may not have been powerful enough, and now, the CDC recommends a booster. Teens should get a booster dose of the vaccine for bacterial meningitis because a single shot doesn't work as long as expected, a federal advisory panel said Wednesday. The vaccine was initially aimed at high school and college students because the disease is more dangerous for adolescents and can easily spread in crowded conditions, like dorm rooms. Three years ago, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices said the vaccine should be offered to children ages 11 and 12. They believed the shot was effective for at least 10 years.

But the panel was told Wednesday that studies show the vaccine works for less than five years.

The committee debated adding a booster shot or simply push back the timing of the single dose to age 14 or 15. They decided that teens should get a booster dose at age 16.

The vote for a second shot was 6 to 5, an unusually close vote for the panel. The panel majority concluded a booster after five years would be easier and less confusing to implement than changing the age for the first shot.

The group provides vaccine advice to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services usually adopt the panel's recommendations and sends the advice to doctors and the public.

However, this recommendation may not be adopted quite so easily. A Food and Drug Administration official, Norman Baylor, said more studies about the safety and effectiveness of a second dose of the vaccine are needed.

Some wondered if it was even necessary to make such a decision. Cases of bacterial meningitis are at historic lows, and a survey of more than 200 colleges and universities - representing more than 2 million students - in the last academic year found 11 cases of bacterial meningitis and three deaths.

"I'm not terribly worried about emergent disease," said Dr. James Turner, head of student health at the University of Virginia. He is a liaison to the panel for the American College Health Association.

But during a public comment session, several people made passionate pleas to keep an initial dose at 11 and 12, and add a booster if necessary. A 25-year-old man told of how his legs and hands were amputated after a bacterial meningitis infection when he was 14.

"Why would we want to go backward?" said Nicholas Springer, of New York City.

A CDC expert, Dr. Amanda Cohn, told the panel that some studies have shown the vaccine's effectiveness dropping off significantly within a few years. A small study of one vaccine, Menactra, found the vaccine was about 95 percent effective the first year but dropped to under 60 percent in patients two to five years after they were vaccinated.

The vaccine isn't cheap. One vaccine, Sanofi Pasteur's Menactra, was first licensed in 2005 and costs about $90. Another, Novartis's Menveo, was licensed this year.

The vaccine is designed to prevent bacterial meningitis and an associated bloodstream infection. The infection can cause swelling of the membranes covering the brain and spinal cord.

Though the disease is fairly rare in the United States, those who get it develop symptoms quickly and can die in only a couple of days. Survivors can suffer mental disabilities, hearing loss and paralysis.

The bacteria is spread by coughing, sneezing and kissing, and most cases occur in previously healthy children and young adults...

All I can tell you Nasaie is that Mrs. G2 and I both had a decision to make concerning vacinations for Whooping cough and this years Flu shots, becasue of the risk to our new grand daughter had we not gotten them. First, they live in a area where one of the last deaths generated from, and in infants if she contracted Whooping cough, it probably would be fatal. OUr kids are both teachers and one of the problems is the fact in that area its loaded with migrant farm workers that do not have vacinations, and that is carried into the schools. They are in a very high risk area, with a very high risk profession for that, and have an infant with a very high risk of contracting something. Choice was get our shots, or do not see the baby for many months until she is old enough to get the shots. I' m sorry but the idea of not having any vacinations whatsoever, to us and to most people is pretty ludicras.

Look Greeney, first you have to prove that vaccines actually do what is claimed they do.

Yes whooping cough is a terrible disease.

Whooping cough is a bacterial infection. So, vaccines (which are supposed to combat virii) don't effect bacteria. Hygiene is the best weapon against bacteria, not vaccines. Meanwhile, vaccines have a number of toxins in there, including mercury.

In southern California, there are a lot of illegals who don't have normal hygiene. They live 20 to a 1 bedroom apartment. It's obvious how they'd get these diseases and spread them. The problem is, vaccines have never been proven to work.

Such a society would be dominated by an elite, unrestrained by traditional values. Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen... - Zbigniew Brezhinsky

You may be 100% right, but to us $270 was a small price to pay, rather than face the kids if we in anyway transmitted either disease to the baby. For a newborn up to 2 months old, if they get either H1N1 flu or the whooping cough, she was told most probably would not survive. It is a real serious problem. I would have never gotten the flu shot for me, I've only had one a few years ago.

Nasaie, your depiction of 20 illegals all living in one bedroom apartment, and poor hygene spreading disease, is a racist stereotype. You might find some places like that, but you can also find the same conditions that do not include illegal mexicans.

Your discription just shows the same ignorance you have about vacinations, where you rejected the proof about the polio vacinations. You have it all figured out, so do whatever you want, but I don't think someone who's clinic is the corner tavern, is much of an authority over the CDC.

What is true is that the majority of illegals here, who have their kids enrolled in schools, do not come into the country with required vacinations. The schools should not allow them on the first day without them. The same is also true with many foriegn visitors from Asian countries, in Las Vegas. My Daugher was required by law to have Hepititus vacinations to work in Vagas Restraunts. Many deseases come in via legal tourists.

Let's play it your way. Let's say that vaccines work. Vaccines do all they claim to do. If your child is vaccinated, then you have no worries of your child getting sick, right? If that is true, then there is no harm in allowing other parents to chose to take that risk. Right?

Such a society would be dominated by an elite, unrestrained by traditional values. Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen... - Zbigniew Brezhinsky

Let's play it your way. Let's say that vaccines work. Vaccines do all they claim to do. If your child is vaccinated, then you have no worries of your child getting sick, right? If that is true, then there is no harm in allowing other parents to chose to take that risk. Right?

That is the stupidest thing iv ever heard / seen written anywhere.

When people decide not to vaccinate, they put us all at risk.

infections mutate if not eradicated 100%

& in almost every example the mutated virus is more infectious & more deadly.

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